Last chance for the Vancouver International Film Festival – 5 more films
Marine Vacth in Young and Beautiful. Photo courtesy VIFF 2013.
We’re already 12 or so days into the 32nd Vancouver Film Festival, with only five more days left to catch some Incredibly Disappearing Films (that is, movies that might be hard to find once they’re off the festival circuit – even in these free-market Internet times). With with more than half the festival over, there’s still some great flicks to see. We’ve scoured the schedule and found these potential gems.
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia – A documentary about one of the U.S.’s preeminent thinkers, novelists and historians, Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia includes clips from his film projects, vintage news/talkshow footage, interviews with famous friends like Dick Cavett and Tim Robbins and with the late Vidal himself. Variety calls it “A fine memorial to one of 20th-century America’s most brilliant, original — and cranky — thinkers…” (Oct 8 at 9 p.m., Cinematheque)
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet – This French feature admittedly has a less-than-promising title (recalling, as it does, a Bachman-Turner Overdrive song – not in itself a bad thing, but hardly the premise for a movie). Yet Alan Resnais’ late-period film, which features a cast of French acting royalty (including Mathieu Amalric, Pierre Arditi, Anne Consigny, Anny Duperey, Michel Piccoli, Lambert Wilson, and Sabine Azéma), is getting raves. “Complex yet lighthearted, as diverting as it is meditative,” writes NPR’s Mark Jenkins. “… a sly, elegant meditation on the relationship between reality and artifice. But it is a thought-experiment driven above all by emotion,” writes the New York Times’ A.O. Scott. (Oct 9 at 3:45 p.m., the Playhouse)
Gloria – Again, not the world’s (or even the film fest’s) most promising title – it’s been used at least twice, for John Cassavettes’ 1980 movie of the same name and a remake – but this Chilean/Spanish co-production is getting good reviews. Those reviews are at least partly for the performance of lead actress Paulina Garcia as the title character, a newly-divorced woman in her mid-50s looking for love. From a cine-vue.com review: “A smart, sensitive and bitterly funny romantic comedy, elegantly played out against the backdrop of a country [Chile] whose political scars are still very much evident, [director Sebastián] Lelio’s endlessly impressive Gloria is perhaps the most enjoyable and heartwarming film at this year’s Berlinale – with Garcia an early frontrunner for the Best Actress prize at this point of the festival.” (She won!) (Oct. 9 at 6:30, Centre for Performing Arts)
Leap 4 Your Life – This Vancouver-shot movie draws on the Christopher Guest (Best in Show) mockumentary formula to tell a story about a dysfunctional teenage dance team. The Globe Mail calls Leap 4 Your Life “great fun with some solid performances… and hilarious songs that you’d be best not to sing on your way out of the theatre.” (Oct. 10 at 2 p.m at Cinematheque)
Paulina Garcia in Gloria. Photo courtesy VIFF 2013.
Young and Beautiful – The latest from Francois Ozon (Swimming Pool, 8 Women, Water Drops on Burning Rocks) finds a beautiful young woman exploring her sexuality. The Hollywood Reporter writes that it “is both psychologically probing and unerringly elegant in its nonjudgmental restraint, driven by a transfixing performance from the incandescent Marine Vacth that will land her major exposure on the casting radar.” (Oct 10 at 1 p.m. at the Playhouse)
Other movies for your consideration (based on positive reviews): The Strange Little Cat, A Gun in Each Hand, The Face of Love (closing gala film).
Theatres:
Centre for the Performing Arts (777 Homer St.)
Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton St.)
Cinematheque (1131 Howe St.)
International Village – (88 W. Pender at Abbott)
Rio Theatre – (1660 E. Broadway near Commercial)
SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts – (149 E. Hastings)
For tickets and more info visit viff.org
Article source: http://www.insidevancouver.ca/2013/10/07/vancouver-international-film-festival-5-more-films/
